Intro
Growth in anything – not least of which is your manliness – is a continuously uphill task. It’s an unending struggle against all the forces that constantly drag you down towards the ground, against the internal inclinations and external factors that slow us down and cause us to lower our standards and drop our ambitions. St. John the Apostle would summarise all these internal inclinations and external factors into three: lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life.
Lust of the flesh meaning your own personal weaknesses and bad habits (i.e. you); lust of the eyes meaning the temptations the external environment presents to you (i.e. the world); the pride of life meaning the temptations that hell presents to you (i.e. the devil). The three wage war against the same three areas we’ve been focusing on so as to grow in our manliness: the body, the mind and the soul. The lust of the flesh wages war against your body, the pride of life against your mind the lust of the eyes against your soul.
Experiencing these internal inclinations and external factors is not bad. Experiencing them does not mean that you are doing something wrong. What does matter is how you handle or react to them. There are many varied reactions, I would like us to focus only on three common ones. Three common approaches or reactions to the onslaught we face in these three battlefields: indifference, exhaustion and frustration.
Indifference is where you simply just ignore the wars and battles that are going on. It follows the slogan “Why bother?”
Exhaustion is where you struggle and fight on all three fronts, but for a number of reasons, your energies are waning and you begin to wonder how much longer you can hold out. It follows the slogan “I’m tired, man!”
Frustration is where you are sincerely giving it your best shot but there are no results to show for it, or if there are, then they are incredibly slow in being realized. It follows the slogan “I’m done with this sh**!”
To be continued…
130520